Yovanovitch: Trump pressured State Department for her removal from Ukraine

Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, center, arrives on Capitol Hill, Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, in Washington, as she is scheduled to testify before congressional lawmakers on Friday as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified to Congress Friday that a senior State Department official informed her that President Donald Trump advocated for her removal from office for months before her abrupt recall from the country in the spring of 2019.

The decision to pull her from Ukraine was based “on false claims by people with clearly questionable motives,” Yovanovitch told the House Intelligence Committee in her opening statement, obtained by the New York Times.

Yovanovitch, who was raised in Connecticut, was the second person named in the whistle-blower complaint that sparked Democrats’ impeachment inquiry to testify before Congress.

In a public signal of her intent to speak out, the veteran diplomat skipped a secret side entrance to the Capitol Friday, opting instead to use a more visible door to go to her highly anticipated deposition.

Yovanovitch’s testimony could imperil her employment at the State Department as the White House has indicated it will not comply with Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. But Yovanovitch testified that she has never supported ignoring the president’s orders.

“Fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump,” Yovanovitch said.

Earlier this week, the State Department blocked another official from testifying to the committee. But U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland bucked the department Friday, announcing he would appear before the House committee under subpoena next week.

House Democrats are investigating whether Trump and his administration pressured Ukraine to investigate one of Trumps’ 2020 rivals, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and his son, Hunter. Democrats want to know whether U.S. military aid was withheld from Ukraine in exchange for information on Biden and if the Trump administration tried to cover up these efforts.

Trump team alleges that Joe Biden thwarted Ukraine’s efforts to probe energy company Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board. A former Ukrainian top prosecutor alleged that Yovanovitch drew up a “do not prosecute list” for Ukraine. Yovanovitch said Friday that was untrue.

“I have never myself or through others, directly or indirectly, ever directed, suggested, or in any other way asked for any government or government official in Ukraine (or elsewhere) to refrain from investigating or prosecuting actual corruption,” she said.

Yovanovitch said she never met Hunter Biden, nor discussed him or Burisma with Joe Biden.

Yovanovitch served as ambassador to Ukraine from August 2016 to May 2019, when she was ordered to get on the next plane home. She discussed her removal from the country with Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, she said.

“The President had lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador,” Yovanovitch testified. “[Sullivan] added that there had been a concerted campaign against me, and that the Department had been under pressure from the President to remove me since the Summer of 2018. He also said that I had done nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause.”

The president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is at the center of the Trump team’s efforts to get information from Ukraine, has been a vocal critic of Yovanovitch. Two Ukrainian businessmen who assisted Giuliani with this mission, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested on federal campaign finance charges Thursday. The duo was also subpoenaed by House Democrats.

“I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” Yovanovitch said. “But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

Yovanovitch worked for the State Department for more than 30 years prior to these recent controversies. She also served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and Armenia previously.

“Today, we see the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within,” Yovanovitch testified. “State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees. We need to rebuild diplomacy as the first resort to advance America’s interests and the front line of America’s defense.”

Yovanovitch was born in Canada to Ukrainian parents and then moved to Connecticut at age three. Her parents, Nadia and Michel, taught foreign languages at Kent School for roughly 30 years, until they retired in 1993. Marie, also known by the Russian nickname Masha, Yovanovitch, graduated from the private boarding school in 1976, Kent’s school magazine indicates.

Emilie Munson is a regional correspondent for Hearst newspapers based in Washington, D.C. She covers the Connecticut and New York Congressional delegations for Hearst Connecticut Media and the Albany-Times Union. Previously, Emilie was state capitol reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media, covering politics and government. She is the recipient of a 2017 Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award in Feature Reporting for her five-part series “Behind the Front Door.” The series explored the intersection of domestic violence and wealth in Greenwich, Connecticut. She also worked as an education reporter for Greenwich Time.